Soldiers struck by enemy fire in President Donald Trump’s war with Iran have laid into the Pentagon under Pete Hegseth’s leadership over the medical care they received while wounded.
Nine U.S. service members tell the Associated Press they feel betrayed by the lack of concern over their injuries and the barriers that blocked them from receiving adequate medical care.
Army Lt. Col. Arturo Lincón was severely wounded in the Iranian drone strike that killed six U.S. service members in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, on March 1. He said he was hit by metal shrapnel that pierced his jaw and neck, severed an artery, and lodged in a vertebra, which put him at risk for a stroke.
Despite this, Lincón’s injuries were not deemed by the Army as serious enough to constitute admission to the U.S. military-associated Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, he tells the AP. He was instead asked to schedule his own outpatient appointments after being sent to a nearby Army barracks.
“I was just kind of on my own, at least it felt like that,” Lincón told the wire service.
Lincón, who also suffered a traumatic brain injury, said he went days without pain medication and that after finally receiving care at Landstuhl, an emergency room doctor was bewildered that he was not already evaluated by a trauma team.
Maj. Stephen Ramsbottom spoke similarly. He told the outlet he had to wait four months to receive his MRI results after having shrapnel removed from his head.
“I’ve had to build my own case for everything,” he said. “It’s very frustrating.”
Another soldier, Rodney Bearman, a Chief Warrant Officer, had shrapnel embedded throughout his whole body as a result of an Iranian strike.
Bearman says he was among those briefly examined at Kuwaiti medical facilities before being sent to the homes of U.S. government officials, as immediate evacuation flights were considered too risky. Nearly two weeks after the attack, Bearman and other injured soldiers were loaded onto a cargo plane, sitting on the floor with straps.
When they arrived in Germany, Bearman said they were not documented as wounded in combat and therefore could not be admitted to Landstuhl for treatment. The soldier said their botched documentation was due to a coding error.
“Never did I think that if I was wounded that these things would happen,” Bearman, a veteran for more than three decades, told the AP. “Some sacred trust that I thought would never be broken was broken.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.
Trump’s war, which has cost the U.S. upwards of $33 billion since it was launched on Feb. 28, has caused the deaths of 14 service members—at least according to the Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System.
Six Pentagon insiders told The Washington Post last month that the number could actually be even higher, with one official saying the death toll could be as high as 23.
